Rex Heuermann

Perpetrator

Background

Rex Andrew Heuermann was born on September 13, 1963, in Massapequa Park, New York, a village on the South Shore of Long Island, to Theodore and Dolores Heuermann. Childhood acquaintances of Heuermann recalled him as being a "momma's boy" who was extremely close to his mother, whom they characterized as controlling. His father, Theodore, a former Merrick resident, World War II veteran and former second lieutenant in the United States Air Force, died in 1975, when Heuermann was twelve years old. Heuermann purchased his childhood home from his mother in 1994 for $170,000 and continued living in the residence until his arrest in 2023. Neighbors commented on the house's increasingly dilapidated appearance during the intervening years, in comparison to more upscale surrounding homes.

Heuermann graduated in 1981 from Berner High School in Massapequa Park, where another member of his senior class was actor William Baldwin. He studied architecture at the New York Institute of Technology and, by 1987, was working for an architectural firm in Manhattan.

Heuermann married his first wife on September 29, 1990, in New Brunswick, New Jersey; the marriage ended in divorce in 1994. He married his second wife, Asa Ellerup, in April 1996 and lived with her and their two children prior to his arrest; Ellerup filed for divorce in 2023.

Investigation

Authorities began to consider Heuermann a suspect in March 2022 after determining that a dark green first‑generation Chevrolet Avalanche registered in his name matched a vehicle described by a witness in one of the killings.

Investigators stated that Heuermann's cellphone records showed contact with three of the four victims, and an email account linked to him had been used to search for information about the investigation. Court records also indicated that he had searched online for "sadistic materials, child pornography, [and] images of the victims and their relatives".

DNA testing showed a potential match between DNA recovered from a discarded pizza crust and DNA found on hair collected from burlap used to wrap one of the victims. A potential match to Heuermann's wife was also identified, when comparing hair found on or near three victims to samples taken from bottles recovered from the trash outside the Heuermann residence. Investigators stated that Heuermann's wife and children were out of state during each of the periods when the killings are believed to have occurred.

Charges

On July 13, 2023, Heuermann was arrested and charged with three counts of first‑degree murder and three counts of second‑degree murder in connection with the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy (24, killed 2009), Megan Waterman (22, killed 2010), and Amber Costello (27, killed 2010).

In January 2024, Heuermann was charged with the murder of Maureen Brainard‑Barnes, 25, who disappeared in 2007.

On June 6, 2024, Heuermann was arraigned and charged with the murders of Jessica Taylor (20, killed 2003) and Sandra Costilla (28, killed 1993). Costilla's murder had not previously been linked to the Gilgo Beach serial killings. This development extended the timeline of the case back to the early 1990s, much earlier than previously believed by investigators.

Plea and court proceedings

On April 8, 2026, Heuermann pleaded guilty to the seven murders with which he had been charged (Melissa Barthelemy, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor, Megan Waterman, Amber Lynn Costello, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, and Sandra Costilla) and admitted to committing an eighth murder - that of Karen Vergata. On June 17, 2026, Heuermann was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Heuermann was not charged with the disappearance and death of Shannan Gilbert, whose search by investigators led to the discovery of the remains of the Gilgo Beach homicide victims.

Victims

Sandra Costilla

Sandra Costilla was a 28-year-old woman from Trinidad and Tobago who was killed on November 19 or 20 in 1993. In December 2024, 31 years after her death, Heuermann was charged with her murder. DNA from hairs found on her body matched Heuermann's.

Costilla was living in New York City at the time of her disappearance. Her body was discovered in November 1993 by hunters in a wooded area in North Sea, Long Island, approximately 60 miles (97 km) northeast of Gilgo Beach. She is the earliest known victim included in the murder charges against Heuermann, suggesting that he allegedly began killing in the 1990s or earlier and that he disposed of bodies in locations beyond the Gilgo Beach area.

The Gilgo Four: victims discovered in December 2010

Maureen Brainard-Barnes of Norwich, Connecticut, was 25 when she disappeared. She was last seen on July 9, 2007, saying she planned "to spend the day in New York City." She was not seen again. Brainard-Barnes worked as a seasonal telemarketer and turned to sex work when unable to find other employment. A mother of two, she advertised as a sex worker on Craigslist to pay her mortgage. She had been out of the sex industry for seven months but returned after receiving an eviction notice. Her body was found in December 2010. She had been restrained with three leather belts, and DNA found on one of the belts matched the wife of Heuermann.

Shortly after her disappearance, her friend Sara Karnes received a call from a man using a blocked number. He claimed he had seen Brainard-Barnes and that she was alive and staying at a "whorehouse in Queens". He refused to identify himself or provide the location. Karnes asked him to call back from an identifiable number so police could act on the information; he said he would but never called again. Karnes reported that the man had no discernible regional accent.

At the time she disappeared, Brainard-Barnes was working from a Super 8 motel in Manhattan. On the night of July 9, 2007, she called a friend in Connecticut and said she planned to meet a client outside the motel. Like many of the victims, she was very petite, at 4 ft 11 in (1.50 m) and 105 pounds (48 kg).

Melissa Barthelemy, 24, of Erie County, New York, went missing on July 12, 2009. She had been living in the Bronx and working as a sex worker through Craigslist. She was known to use the alias "Chloe". On the night she disappeared, she met with a client, deposited $900 in her bank account, and attempted to call an ex‑boyfriend but did not reach him. Beginning one week later and continuing for five weeks, her 15‑year‑old sister received a series of "vulgar, mocking, and insulting" calls from a man—possibly the killer—using Barthelemy's phone.

The calls escalated and culminated in the caller telling her sister that Barthelemy was dead and that he was going to "watch her rot". Police traced some calls to Madison Square Garden, Midtown Manhattan, and Massapequa but were unable to identify the caller. Barthelemy's mother noted that there were "a lot of calls to Manorville" from her daughter's phone around the time she disappeared. Barthelemy was 4 ft 10 in (1.47 m) and 95 pounds (43 kg). Her remains were the first discovered during the search for Shannan Gilbert.

Additional six victims discovered in March and April 2011

Four additional sets of remains were discovered on March 29 and April 4, 2011. All were found in another area off the parkway near Oak Beach and Gilgo Beach, within 2 miles (3.2 km) east of the remains located in December 2010. These victims were Jessica Taylor, Valerie Mack, Tanya Jackson, and Jackson's daughter, Tatiana Dykes. Suffolk County Police Department subsequently expanded the search area to the Nassau County border in an effort to locate more victims. Mack was not identified until 2020, and Jackson and Dykes were not identified until 2024.

Two additional sets of remains were found on April 11, 2011, after the search expanded into Nassau County. They were located about 1 mile (1.6 km) apart and approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) west of the remains discovered in December. One set belonged to a victim with XY chromosomes who may have been a crossdresser or a transgender woman. Police referred to this victim as "Asian Doe" based on forensic evidence indicating Asian ancestry. Investigators estimated that the victim had been dead for between five and ten years. The other set of remains belonged to "Jane Doe No. 7", whose partial remains had been found on Fire Island in 1996. Jane Doe No. 7 was identified as Karen Vergata in 2023.

Valerie Mack, 24, also known as Melissa Taylor, was living in Philadelphia and working as an escort when she went missing in 2000. Like many of the victims, she was small in stature, approximately 5 ft (1.5 m), and weighed approximately 100 pounds (45 kg). Mack had been in foster care from an early age and was never reported missing. She was the mother of a young son.

Mack's partial remains were discovered in Manorville, New York, east of Gilgo Beach, on November 19, 2000. They were not identified until 2020. Her torso was found wrapped in garbage bags and dumped in the woods near the intersection of Halsey Manor Road and Mill Road, adjacent to power lines and a nearby access road.

A head, right foot, and hands found on April 4, 2011, were initially classified as belonging to an unidentified victim known as "Jane Doe No. 6". In 2020, officials determined that these remains belonged to the same woman whose torso had been found in 2000.

Police investigations

Disappearance of Shannan Gilbert

On May 1, 2010, Shannan Gilbert, a 24‑year‑old escort, was working at a client's residence in a gated community in Oak Beach on Jones Beach Island in Suffolk County. At 4:51 a.m., Gilbert called 911 from the property of the client, Joseph Brewer, telling the dispatcher that someone was "after her" and that "they" were trying to kill her, but did not provide her location. She ran to a nearby home and was let inside, but fled again when asked to wait for police. She was last seen shortly afterward, banging on the front door of another residence and screaming for help before running into the night.

In December 2011, 19 months after her disappearance, Gilbert's remains were found in a marsh between Oak Beach and Ocean Parkway, about half a mile from where she had last been seen. The cause of her death remains disputed. In May 2012, Suffolk County medical examiners ruled that Gilbert had accidentally drowned after entering the marsh, though the official autopsy lists the cause of death as "undetermined." Gilbert's mother, Mari Gilbert—who has since died—publicly argued that her daughter had been murdered by a serial killer and criticized police for failing to identify a perpetrator.

Due to the controversy about Gilbert's death, in September 2014, forensic pathologist Michael Baden agreed to conduct an independent autopsy of Gilbert's remains in hopes of determining a clear cause of death. Upon examination of Gilbert's remains, Baden found damage to her hyoid bone suggesting that strangulation may have occurred. Baden also noted that her body was found face-up, which is not common for drowning victims. Nevertheless, her cause of death was listed as "undetermined".

On May 6, 2020, the New York State Supreme Court ordered Suffolk County Police to release Gilbert's 911 call recording, denying their request to withhold it after more than 10 years. On May 13, 2022, the Suffolk County Police Department released the 911 call.

Profile of killer

According to a 2011 The New York Times article, the perpetrator was most likely a white male in his mid-twenties to mid-forties who was very familiar with the South Shore of Long Island and had access to burlap sacks used to hold the bodies for disposal. Investigators have held various theories on whether there may be more than one killer.

FBI involvement

On December 10, 2015, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Tim Sini announced that the FBI had officially joined the investigation. The announcement came one day after former police chief James Burke was indicted for civil rights violations and conspiracy. Burke, who had resigned from the department in October 2015, was reported to have blocked FBI involvement in the Gilgo Beach cases for years. The FBI had previously assisted in the search for victims but had never officially been a part of the investigation. In November 2016, Burke was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for assault and conspiracy. There was considerable other inter-agency friction and failures to cooperate in law enforcement that hindered the investigation over the years.

Person of interest

On September 12, 2017, Suffolk County prosecutor Robert Biancavilla said that John Bittrolff, a Suffolk County resident convicted of murdering two sex workers and suspected in the murder of a third, may have committed some of the Gilgo Beach murders. Biancavilla said that Bittrolff was likely responsible for the deaths of other women and that there were similarities between the Gilgo Beach crime scenes and Bittrolff's known murders, for which he was convicted in May 2017 and sentenced in September of that year.

Bittrolff was arrested in 2014 after his DNA was found on the bodies of two murder victims, Rita Tangredi and Colleen McNamee, whose bodies were found in 1993 and 1994, respectively. The match had been made through DNA submitted by his brother, who was convicted in 2013 on an unrelated case. Bittrolff was convicted in May 2017 of these murders, and in September sentenced to consecutive terms of 25 years for each murder. The Suffolk County police did not comment on the prosecutor's statement due to the active homicide investigation of the Gilgo Beach murders. Bittrolff's attorney rejected the prosecutor's assertion.

Bittrolff lived in Manorville, where the torsos of Gilgo Beach victims Jessica Taylor and Valerie Mack were recovered. The adult daughter of Rita Tangredi was also the best friend of Melissa Barthelemy, one of the Gilgo Beach victims.

2020 release of evidence to the public

On January 16, 2020, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Geraldine Hart released images of a belt found at the crime scene with the letters "HM" or "WH" (depending on the orientation of the belt) embossed in black leather. The belt had been found during the initial investigation near Ocean Parkway in Gilgo Beach. Police believe that the belt was handled by the perpetrator and that it had not belonged to any of the victims. The police revealed few details about the belt's evidentiary value and would not comment on exactly where it had been found. It was also announced that new scientific evidence was being used in the investigation and that they had launched a website enabling the department to share news and receive tips regarding the investigation. However, the website has since been taken down.

Timeline

1990

September 29, 1990 (1990-09-29): Heuermann marries first wife, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

1993

November 19, 1993 (1993-11-19): Sandra Costilla last seen, New York City, New York.

November 20, 1993 (1993-11-20): Remains of Sandra Costilla found, North Sea, New York.

1994

1994 (1994): Heuermann divorces first wife.

1996

February 14, 1996 (1996-02-14): Karen Vergata last seen.

April 20, 1996 (1996-04-20): Partial and then-unidentified remains of Karen Vergata found, Fire Island, New York.

April 1996 (1996-04): Heuermann marries second wife, Asa Ellerup.

1997

June 28, 1997 (1997-06-28): Partial and then-unidentified remains of Tanya Jackson found, Hempstead Lake State Park, Lakeview, New York.

2000

2000 (2000): Valerie Mack last seen by family members in spring or summer, Port Republic, New Jersey.

November 19, 2000 (2000-11-19): Partial and then-unidentified remains of Valerie Mack found, Manorville, New York.

2003

July 21, 2003 (2003-07-21): Jessica Taylor last seen, Port Authority Bus Terminal, Manhattan, New York.

In media

Numerous films, television programs, podcasts, and other media have covered or referenced the case. These include:

48 Hours: "Long Island Serial Killer" (July 12, 2011), re-aired on September 8, 2023, with information regarding the suspect

Disappeared: "Footprints in the Sand" (April 10, 2012), season 5, episode 14

Killing Time (2012), a play by Tom Slot

The Long Island Serial Killer (2013), also known as The Gilgo Beach Murders, an independent feature directed by Joseph DiPietro

Dark Minds: "Long Island Serial Killer" (April 22, 2014), season 3, episode 5, investigative journalist, M. William Phelps and criminal profiler, John Kelly searching for clues to identify the killer on Investigation Discovery.

Lyrics of Woz song ‘Gilgo Beach’ reference the time before the perpetrator was identified.

Lyrics of the Panama Wedding song "Feels Like Summer" (2014) reference the events of the murders in Gilgo Beach.

People Magazine Investigates: "The Long Island Serial Killer: The Lost Girls" (2016), season 1, episodes 1–2

The Killing Season (2016), docuseries episode

Crime Junkie (April 16, 2018), episode 21: "SERIAL KILLER: L.I.S.K."

Lost Girls (2020), Netflix film based on Robert Kolker's 2013 book of the same name

60 Minutes Australia: "Who is the Long Island serial killer?" (2020)